


The easy thrum of "home"

by bluebatwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Stream of Consciousness, canon divergence from somewhere after they start living in the bunker, fluff plus angst equals flangst, human!Cas, mid-season 8 I guess?, slight dubcon for like a second
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:05:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6758917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebatwings/pseuds/bluebatwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cas shows up on the bunker’s doorstep, soaking wet and bleeding, and how the hell does he always manage to look so pathetic? Sam immediately fusses over him in that way he has, and Dean wants to do the same, but he sucks at this kind of thing. He tells Cas that he’ll do his laundry."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The easy thrum of "home"

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the overuse of commas, italics, and parentheses-- how can I help it that Dean likes run-on sentences and emphasis?
> 
> Many thanks to [Julia](https://twitter.com/eponassong) for being a wonderful beta and for helping me get over the fear of other human's eyeballs looking at my writing <3

Cas shows up on the bunker’s doorstep, soaking wet and bleeding, and how the hell does he always manage to look so pathetic? Sam immediately fusses over him in that way he has, and Dean wants to do the same, but he sucks at this kind of thing. He tells Cas that he’ll do his laundry.

They help him take his trench coat off, and the back is covered in blood; Cas can’t seem to give a straight answer at first, but eventually his face crumples and the words _My wings are gone_ hit Dean like a truck. It’s the last thing he’s expecting.

Details, they should get details, Dean figures while Cas is working out how to use the shower. Circumstances of an angel suddenly becoming human seem important, but when Cas emerges from the bathroom looking tired and small in a t-shirt and sweatpants, Dean decides to let it go for the night.

He has his very own bedroom in the bunker-- at Cas’s mild surprise, Dean says, of course you do. It’s always been his, of course it has, not that Castiel would have ever known it, because the Winchesters are shit communicators.

 

*  
It’s ten in the morning on the next day, and Castiel hasn’t come out of his room. Shit communicator Dean Winchester pokes his head in to find Cas tangled up in at least three blankets, still dead asleep. (Dean checks quickly to make sure that’s what it is, and not actually _dead_. You never know, and Dean won’t be settled until he checks.) Dean lets him sleep, wonders if Cas has ever even had a night of rest before, and Cas doesn’t emerge until early afternoon. Dean makes him coffee, and it’s like a revelation.

 

*  
Castiel putters around the bunker. He examines the Men of Letters’ books and artifacts silently, a blanket draped around his shoulders. He wears Dean’s old t-shirt, which Dean notices, but pretends he doesn’t. Castiel requests more coffee.

 

*  
A case pops up that same day. Sammy takes it, but Dean stays behind-- it’s just a salt-and-burn a couple of states over, not really a two man job. Dean says he wants to do some digging into the Men of Letters’ archive. Sam gives him a look like he knows Dean really means he wants to keep an eye on Cas. 

 

*  
It’s after midnight, and there’s a shape in Dean’s bedroom door. Before he registers anything beyond that, his hand is on the knife under his pillow and he’s thinking about the gun under his mattress. But his eyes adjust, and it’s just Cas (well. Never _just_ Cas). Can’t sleep, Castiel tells him. No? Never had to, before. Can’t shut that brain up? Something like that, I suppose. Nightmares, Dean says, not a question, like he knows. Castiel nods, shrugs. Dean gets them too; he says as much. And he heaves a sigh and says, dammit, get in. Castiel cocks his head in that way he has, and Dean rolls his eyes like this is an imposition, like his heart isn’t pounding in his chest, and he pushes his blankets aside to make room for Cas in his bed.

You tell Sam about this and I’ll kill you, Dean says half-heartedly after Castiel has curled up at his side, mountain of blankets over him, carefully not touching Dean. The music, I mean, Dean amends as he untangles headphones and shows Cas the iPod Sammy bought him for Christmas last year. Dean had bitched about it, but he uses it more than he would ever admit. Especially for times like this. He had stumbled upon this on the internet, and morbid curiosity had made him hit download (under some other poor bastard’s credit card, of course). After some time, he had found that it helped him sleep, occasionally. He doesn’t know if it will work for Cas, but it’s worth a shot. 

He shows Castiel how to put the earbuds in, finds the playlist, chooses his favorite song. He can tell by Cas’s face when the music starts-- can practically hear the instrumental lullaby version of the Led Zeppelin song for himself. He makes sure the volume isn’t up too high, and then says, just loud enough to be heard, _Try to get some sleep, Cas._ Castiel closes his eyes obediently, not embarrassed to be on his side facing Dean, and Dean makes himself close his eyes, too.

(Castiel thanks him in the morning, says it was the first time he’s slept all the way through the night, and then demands that Dean make him coffee.)

 

*  
Dean’s going a bit stir-crazy, so he decides to teach Cas how to cook something. Burgers shouldn’t be too hard, and it’s something to do. It’s been two days since Cas’s broken arrival, and he’s said very little about how he came to be in this state ( _\--human_ , Dean can hardly wrap his head around it). Dean asks careful questions as they work, and Cas is slow to answer. The full story never gets told, but it’s fine-- in time, Dean’s sure.

He decides on a movie marathon, too. He sets them up on the couch with plenty of snacks, beer, and blankets for Cas (he seems to always be cold, although he never complains about it (Dean has no way of knowing yet that come summer, Castiel will be _insufferable_ due to the heat)), and queues up the movies. Dean has developed an unhealthy addiction for Netflix, and he plans on taking Cas down with him.

 

*  
Sammy calls with an update, says things are going fairly by the book, and Dean is relieved. He doesn’t love sending Sam out by himself, but he’s not a kid, he can take care of himself. Dean has to remind himself of that sometimes. Cas, on the other hand, might as well be a child in some ways. Hell, he needed help figuring out the shower on his first night here. Dean's just doing what he'd do for anyone-- making sure that Cas eats regular meals and doesn't accidentally kill himself during his first few days as a human.

 

*  
Castiel shows up at Dean’s bedroom door again, and Dean sighs, but doesn’t really mean it, and he shifts to his right to make room. Castiel tells him the music was nice, before, last time, and Dean gets his iPod out again. Dean doesn’t say that he thought it was nice too, not the music, but having Cas so close by, knowing that he was okay. He also doesn’t think, _having you in my bed_ , because that would be too much. Five years, and it would still be too much. Cas falls asleep curled up in a ball like he’s trying to conserve heat, or like sleeping spread out would make him feel too vulnerable, but maybe that’s just Dean projecting. He falls asleep with Cas’s head right next to his.

He wakes up with Cas’s hips flush against his ass. Dean notices because Cas is moving slightly, shifting, and Dean feels that Cas is hard against him. For some reason, his first thought is curiosity at what ( _who_ ) Cas might be dreaming of, and then his second, more immediate thought is, _fuck_. He’s wide awake now, facing away from Cas, and he hopes to _god_ that Cas really is still asleep because this is going to be one hell of an awkward conversation if he’s not. How they even ended up like this, in this _spooning_ position (with Dean as the _little spoon_ , for god’s sake), Dean has no idea. The fact that it was natural enough to happen during sleep gives Dean pause, but then a particularly on the mark thrust from Cas causes all thought to fly out of Dean’s head (and a gasp to fly from his throat). He has to delicately extract himself from the arm he finds thrown over his waist, and when he’s finally free from Cas’s hold, Dean has to run out of the bedroom before he can do something stupid like _look_ at Cas while knowing that he’s hard under those piles of blankets. Dean flees towards the bathroom.

Dean has Castiel’s coffee ready by the time Cas makes it out of the bedroom. He takes it too sweet, a fact Dean tells the inside of the refrigerator when he realizes that he can’t quite look Cas in the face. He clears his throat, and then says the word _eggs_ , and then clears his throat again, and then makes them both eggs.

The awkwardness quickly fades, and in its place leaves a kind of recognition on Dean's end. He's thought about it, of course he's thought about it, just never in so much detail, never because it could actually _matter_. Could it matter now? It’s a question he doesn't know if he's ready to ask, because he's not certain he could handle _no_ as the answer. He's not ready to ask that of either of them, and he lets it float to the back of his mind, like always.

 

*  
It’s still a few days before he’ll be home, Sam tells Dean the next time he calls. It still throws Dean to hear _home_. But by now, Cas has settled in nicely; he knows how to make pasta, how to work Netflix, even how to make his own damn coffee (although he still always requests that Dean do it, to which Dean replies with some variation of, _you drink too much goddamn coffee, what kind of monster have I created_ , and Cas just looks at him, and Dean inevitably gives in). 

Another regular habit they’ve established is Castiel sleeping in Dean’s room, sometimes with music, sometimes without. Dean realizes it’s become a constant when he gets ready for bed one night to find Cas already out, under the covers, on his own side. Dean hadn’t invited him in that night, although he’s apparently been thinking of that as _Cas’s side_. It startles him, and then it doesn’t, because this has been years in the making and Dean knows that sometimes he’s a goddamn idiot.

 

*  
Days had always passed in jolts and bumps for Dean; the none-too-smooth drive of his car, the adrenaline-spiked days and nights of a hunt, the poor sleep on lumpy motel mattresses. When there _were_ days of peace, they were always riddled with a kind of anxiety, the knowledge that things weren’t really okay just because they were quiet. These days aren’t like that, and Dean doesn’t know what to make of it. They pass slowly, but sweetly, in a kind of rhythm that Dean can’t quite identify, but maybe like a heartbeat. It’s not completely right, Sam’s not there, but it’s not _off_ like it was when Cas was nowhere to be found, because at least Dean knows Sam will be back soon. It makes Dean breathe easier, whatever it is, and it seems to help Cas sleep. The easy thrum of _home_ pervades the air, and it seems to give life to something that was next to dead in Dean, and Castiel, too.

Cas laughs at one of Dean’s jokes, and it’s the best socked-in-the-gut feeling Dean has ever had. Smiles have been few and far between the last week. Dean would have been afraid that something more than he could fix had broken in Cas, except for the fact that Cas had never been a bundle of laughs in the first place. But maybe he _had_ been a little worried, because the pure feeling of _relief_ that floods through Dean at the sound of Cas laughing almost knocks him off his feet. He doesn’t mention it, but he tries to remember the joke, just in case he needs to use some variation of it in the future to make Cas laugh again. 

 

*  
There’s too much _feeling_ inside of Dean, and he can’t figure out how to sort it. Confusion and doubt seep into his every emotion, tingeing every thought, good and bad. Dean’s a fucking mess, and Cas notices, because of course he does. Sam has the Impala, so Dean can’t even get out, go for a drive to clear his head. He knows not even that would help though, because he’s been subconsciously thinking this through for years, he’s just a goddamn coward, is the problem. Anybody who’s known him since he met Castiel wouldn’t be surprised, and he doesn’t know if he should be embarrassed that he’s been so freaking obvious for so long but only just now coming to a conclusion. (Or, coming to terms? Because hasn’t he always known?)

He wonders if he’ll ever get the guts up; he wonders if Cas knows. He wonders how he’ll be able to sleep next to him tonight if both of them know but neither of them are _saying_ it. (But doubt creeps into his mind, like always, and he hears that he doesn’t deserve it and that Cas doesn’t _want_ it, because who would want such a broken man? Nobody who was an angel once, that’s for damn sure--) (It’s nothing new, and it shuts Dean’s mouth.)

 

*  
Cas is the one who brings it up, because of course he does. “Is there something wrong?” and “Is it something I did?” Dean doesn’t know how to answer, because _yes_ seems like the wrong thing to say, even though it’s pretty much the truth. But not in a way that’s Cas’s fault, which is why Dean says, “No,” and “Of course not.” Cas falls asleep on the couch that night and, damn it all to hell, Dean finds he can’t fall asleep in his own bed anymore without that son of a bitch there.

 

*  
The day that Dean finally cracks and pushes Castiel up against a wall coincides with the morning Castiel decides to wear nothing but a pair of Dean’s boxer shorts to breakfast. Later, Dean will find out that Cas did it on purpose, the sneaky bastard, and the rush of affection Dean feels for him overshadows any embarrassment. Eventually they get to questions like, _How long?_ and, _Why did you never say?_ and, _Is there anybody more stupid than us?_ , but that’s after Dean learns that they would both like it very much for Dean to take Cas, immediately, on the dining room table.

 

*  
The bedroom officially belongs to both of them after that, and Dean likes the idea that they’ve been giving the memory foam bed some interesting things to remember (Cas blushes and laughs when Dean says that to him, and Dean’s chest is so full up of heart that he thinks he could suffocate and go out smiling). Sam calls them _cutesy_ at one point, and the thought doesn’t even make Dean want to gag. Dean does things like buy Castiel sweaters because he’s always cold, and make him coffee, and call him sexy after he gets done taking out a nest of vamps. He introduces him as Castiel Winchester to a fellow hunter on the fly one day, and it surprises both of them, but it sticks. It makes sense, it’s been true for years; Castiel has always had a home with them, a room of his own. (But Dean prefers him in his.)

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bluebatwings)!)


End file.
